WebQuest | Essential Questions | WWII Heroes | Nuclear Accident? | California Standards | Port Chicago Today
Was it the world's first atomic
detonation?
- -You decide. -
-
Was this a planned nuclear explosion? An
accident?
Would the United States Navy use their own personnel and equipment as guinea pigs?
Why was there 400 to 600 pages of reports and memoranda on Port Chicago held at the Los Alamos (Manhattan Project) Laboratories?
"Eyewitnesses reported "an enormous blinding incandescent." The Navy reported "the first flash was brilliant white."
The Navy had a nitrate-based film of the explosion from a distance, meaning a camera was trained on the spot that night.
The explosion resulted in a crater 66 feet deep, 300 feet wide and 700 feet long in the river bottom. A five-kiloton nuclear bomb on the surface of wet soil creates a crater 53 feet deep and 132 feet in diameter.
Specifications for the U-235 gun-bomb used at Hiroshima were complete by February 1944, according to Volume I of the Manhattan District History.
15.5 kilograms of U-235 is needed for a gun-bomb. 74 kilograms of U-235 was available by December 1943, according to the US Department of Energy records.
The explosion produced a Wilson condensation cloud like those characteristic of atomic bombs detonated in vapor-laden atmospheres
Note:
The National Parks Services does not believe the
accident at Port Chicago to be nuclear and the U.S. Navy has denied it.
The site today does not show signs of radiation and survivors had normal
post health.
Read through this collection of books, videos and articles.
Form teams to debate the facts and possibilities.
The Last Wave
from Port Chicago
A new online book by Peter Vogel that is the culmination of over 20 years
of research!
www.portchicago.org
Books of Interest from Amazon.com
The Port Chicago Mutiny by Robert Allen
Closely Guarded Secrets: : The Assasination of F.D.R., Japan's Atomic Bomb, the Massacre at Port Chicago
Video of Interest from Amazon.com
The Port Chicago Disaster
Originally found in articles written by Robert L. Allen & Peter Vogel
as published in THE BLACK SCHOLAR, Journal of Black Studies & Research,
Volume 13, Numbers 2 and 3 - Spring 1982
http://users.javanet.com/~ejm/portchic.htm
Nuclear Incident at Port of Chicago in 1944
an August 12, 1992 interview with Peter Vogel by Tom Valentine on Radio
Free America.
http://www.etext.org/Politics/History/port_of_chicago_blast.txt
Port Chicago - 50
Years: Was it an atomic blast? (4 part article)
By David Caul and Susan Todd
The Napa Sentinel , January 1990
http://www.sonic.net/sentinel/usa4.html
A MUSHROOM CLOUD -
What really happened at Port Chicago in 1944, a nuclear explosion?
By Harry V. Martin - Copyright FreeAmerica and Harry V. Martin, 1995
http://www.sonic.net/sentinel/usa5.html
Port Chicago Update
- History of 10,000 Ton Gadget
By Harry V. Martin - Copyright FreeAmerica and Harry V. Martin, 1995
http://www.sonic.net/sentinel/usa6.html
Captain William S.
Parsons, Memorandum on Port Chicago Disaster
http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq80-3a.htm
That was no Atomic
Bomb Explosion!
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: jls@wdl.loral.com (Jeff Stephan)
Subject: Re: Atomic bomb explosion in Port Chicago, California
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 01:59:08 GMT
http://www.urbanlegends.com/death/port_chicago_explosion.html
COVERUP: Possible Nuclear Disaster in US at Port Chicago
http://www.wovoca.com/controversies-port-chicago-disaster.htm
Contra Costa County Office of Education
Pleasant Hill, CA
dprouty@cccoe.k12.ca.us